Media of the United States
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:''American media redirects here. For the publisher of the same name, see [[American Media (publisher)]].''
The '''media of the [[United States]]''' consist of several different types of communications media: [[television]], [[radio]], [[film|cinema]], [[newspaper]]s, [[magazine]]s, and [[Internet]]-based [[Web site]]s. The U.S. also has a strong [[music]] industry.
Many of the media are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from [[advertising]], [[subscription]]s, and [[sale]] of [[copyright]]ed material.
{{TOCright}}
American media conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large profits as well as large criticism in many parts of the world. Further [[deregulation]] and [[convergence]] are under way, leading to mega-mergers, further [[concentration of media ownership]], and the emergence of multinational media conglomerates. Critics allege that [[localism]], local news and other content at the community level, media spending and coverage of news, and [[Multiculturalism|diversity]] of ownership and views have suffered as a result of these processes of media concentration.<ref>"Converging Media, Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News Media in the United States and Canada" Edited by David Skinner, James R. Compton, and Michael Gasher, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Robert William Jensen, review essay of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times," published in The Texas Observer, September 17, 1999, archived at:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/thinkingdemocracy.htm </ref>
Some people allege that the success of such companies may be due to certain policies of the American [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]], though it may be just as likely that the media field is prone to [[natural monopoly|natural monopolies]]. See [[Media bias in the United States]].
The organisation [[Reporters Without Borders]] compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organization's assessment of their press freedom records. In 2007 USA was ranked 48th, which was an improvement from the preceding year.
==Television==
{{main|Television of the United States}}
Television in the United States is regulated, along with radio, by the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC). There are several thousand local stations, of which many belong to the seven nationwide commercial broadcast networks. Traditionally, there were three: [[NBC]], [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], and [[CBS]]. The four newer networks are [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]], [[The CW]], [[MyNetworkTV]] and [[ION Television]], along with various smaller services. There is also a noncommercial public television network, [[PBS]], which is partially subsidized by the federal government. [[Public access television]] are open cable channels allowing for citizen produced programming to appear on local cable networks. Hispanic terrestrial networks like [[Univision]], [[Telemundo]], [[Telefutura]], and countless others have also sprung into popularity and, in Hispanic markets, occasionally beat the major English-speaking networks in the ratings.
Besides the "free" over-the-air television networks, there are also many networks which can be received on a television only after arranging for a subscription to a cable or digital satellite service. Examples include [[Home Box Office|HBO]] and [[CNN]].
The FCC is currently orchestrating a difficult nationwide transition from the old analog television standard, [[NTSC]] (often mocked as "Never The Same Color"), to the new digital standard, [[ATSC Standards|ATSC]]. As of today, all analog television broadcasts in the U.S. are slated to be shut off by 2009.
Restrictions on the content of broadcast media have been upheld by the [[U.S. Supreme Court]]. The usual justifications are the scarcity of usable electromagnetic spectrum and the fact that unlike with books or magazines, it is difficult to provide advance warning of the nature of program content (if someone tunes in during the middle of the program).
==Radio==
{{main|Radio in the United States}}
American [[radio]] broadcasts in two bands: [[frequency modulation|FM]] and [[amplitude modulation|AM]]. Some stations are only [[talk radio]] — featuring interviews and discussions — while [[music radio]] stations broadcast one particular type of music: [[Top 40]], [[Hip hop music|hip-hop]], [[country music|country]], etc. Radio broadcast companies have become increasingly consolidated in recent years. [[National Public Radio]] is the nation's primary public radio network, but most radio stations are commercial and profit-oriented.
[[Talk radio]] as a political medium has also exploded in popularity during the 1990s, due to the 1987 repeal of the [[FCC Fairness Doctrine]], which meant that stations no longer had to "balance" their day by programming alternative points of view.
The FCC has recently approved a transition to digital radio technology which allows both FM and AM stations to "piggyback" digital data on top of their existing analog broadcasts. When the transition is complete at some point in the far future, the analog broadcasts will be replaced with true high-quality digital broadcasts. See [[IBOC]] and [[HD Radio]].
A new form of radio that is gaining popularity is [[satellite radio]]. The two biggest [[subscriptions]] based radio services are [[Sirius Satellite Radio]] and [[XM Satellite Radio]], which have recently both merged together to form an as-of-yet unnamed satellite radio entity. Unlike terrestrial radio music channels are commercial free and other channels feature very minimal commercials. Satellite Radio also is not regulated by the [[FCC]].
== Motion Pictures ==
{{main|Cinema of the United States}}
In the 20th century, the motion picture industry rose to become one of the most successful and powerful industries in the U.S. Along with other intellectual property industries, its relative importance to the American economy has strengthened as the importance of manufacturing and agriculture have decreased (due to [[globalization]]).
== Newspapers ==
{{main|Newspapers in the United States}}
[[Newspaper]]s have declined in their influence and penetration into American households over the years. The U.S. does not have a national paper ''per se'', although the influential dailies the ''[[New York Times]]'' and the ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'' are sold in most U.S. cities. The ''Times'' has a liberal stance, while the ''Journal'' is moderate-right and is strongly pro-business.
Although the Times' primary audience has always been the people of [[New York City]], the New York Times has gradually become the dominant national "newspaper of record." Apart from its daily nationwide distribution, the term means that back issues are archived on microfilm by every decent-sized public [[library]] in the nation, and the Times' articles are often cited by both [[historian]]s and [[judge]]s as [[evidence]] that a major historical event occurred on a certain date. The [[Los Angeles Times]] and the Wall Street Journal are also newspapers of record to a lesser extent. Although [[USA Today]] has tried to establish itself as a national paper, it has been widely derided by the academic world as the "McPaper" and is not subscribed to (let alone archived) by most libraries.
Apart from the newspapers just mentioned, all major metropolitan areas have their own local newspapers. Typically, a metropolitan area will support at most one or two major newspapers, with many smaller publications targeted towards particular audiences. Although the cost of publishing has increased over the years, the price of newspapers has generally remained low, forcing newspapers to rely more on advertising revenue and on articles provided by a major wire service, such as the [[Associated Press]] or [[Reuters]], for their national and world coverage.
With a very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large chains such as [[Gannett]] or [[The McClatchy Company|McClatchy]], which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families.
Most general-purpose newspapers are either being printed one time a week, usually on Thursday or Friday, or are printed daily. Weekly newspapers tend to have much smaller circulation and are more prevalent in rural communities or small towns. Major cities often have "[[alternative media|alternative weeklies]]" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s), for example, New York City's ''[[Village Voice]]'' or Los Angeles' ''[[L.A. Weekly]]'', to name two of the most well-known. Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries and papers for local ethnic and social groups.
Probably due to competition from other media, the number of daily newspapers in the U.S. has declined over the past half-century, according to ''[[Editor & Publisher]]'', the trade journal of American newspapers. In particular, the number of evening newspapers has fallen by almost one-half since 1970, while the number of morning editions and Sunday editions has grown.
For comparison, in 1950, there were 1,772 daily papers (and 1,450 — or about 70 percent — of them were evening papers) while in 2000, there were 1,480 daily papers (and 766--or about half--of them were evening papers.)
Daily newspaper circulation is also slowly declining in America, partly due to the near-demise of two-newspaper towns, as the weaker newspapers in most cities have folded:
<blockquote>
<table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5>
<tr><td>1960</td><td>58.8 million</td></tr>
<tr><td>1970</td><td>62.1 million</td></tr>
<tr><td>1980 </td><td>62.2 million</td></tr>
<tr><td>1990 </td><td>62.3 million</td></tr>
<tr><td>2000 </td><td>55.8 million</td></tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
The primary source of newspaper income is advertising — in the form of "[[classifieds]]" or inserted advertising circulars — rather than [[newspaper circulation|circulation]] income. However, since the late 1990s, this revenue source has been directly challenged by Web sites like [[eBay]] (for sales of secondhand items), [[Monster.com]] (jobs), and [[Craigslist]] (everything).
The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the United States are ''[[USA Today]]'', the ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', the ''[[New York Times]]'' and the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.
See also: [[List of newspapers in the United States]]
* [http://www.theworldpress.com/press/unitedstatesofamericapress.htm Newspapers of United States of America]
== Magazines ==
{{See also|List of United States magazines}}
Thanks to the huge size of the English-speaking North American media market, the United States has a large [[magazine]] industry with hundreds of magazines serving almost every interest, as can be determined by glancing at any newsstand in any large American city. Most magazines are owned by one of the large media conglomerates or by one of their smaller regional brethren.
The U.S. has three leading weekly [[newsmagazine]]s: ''[[TIME]]'', ''[[Newsweek]]'' and ''[[U.S. News and World Report]]''. Time and Newsweek are center-left while U.S. News tends to be center-right, although all three (in theory, at least) strive to provide objective news reporting and limit personal bias to the opinion pages. ''Time'' is well-known for naming a "person of the year" each year, while ''U.S. News'' publishes annual ratings of American colleges and universities.
The U.S. also has over a dozen major political magazines (the exact number is debatable, of course), serving every part of the political spectrum from left to right.
Finally, besides the hundreds of specialized magazines that serve the diverse interests and [[hobby|hobbies]] of the American people, there are also dozens of magazines published by [[profession]]al organizations for their members, such as ''[[Communications of the ACM]]'' (for [[computer science]] specialists) and the ''[[ABA Journal]]'' (for [[lawyer]]s).
==Internet==
{{main|Internet in the United States}}
The Internet has provided a means for newspapers and other media organizations to deliver news and, significantly, the means to look up old news. Some organizations only make limited amounts of their output available for free, and charge for access to the rest. Other organizations allow their archives to be freely browsed. It is possible that the latter type obtain more influence, as they are true to the spirit of ''freedom of information'' by virtue of making it free. Anyone who has followed external links only to be confronted with a ''pay to view'' banner, might attest that the reputations of organizations that charge is not enhanced by their charging policy, particularly when the same information is available from sources that don't charge.
The Internet, by means of making available such constantly growing news archives, is, in effect, writing our history as it happens, at a level of detail never before known. While proprietary archives are slowly exposed to the public after many decades, organizations that maintain immediately-updating resources have more control over what will be remembered by the general public in the near future.
==See also==
* [[Media of Puerto Rico]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://www.theworldpress.com/press/unitedstatesofamericapress.htm Newspapers of United States of America] from theworldpress.com
{{United States topics}}
{{North America topic|Media of}}
[[Category:American media| ]]
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